The Office of National Statistics has released a paper based on Labour Force Survey data that estimates the number of foreign workers employed in the UK and makes a stab at how many work in various industry sectors, including construction. Leaving aside the assumptions and definitions the figures work out roughly as such
Taylor Wimpey’s move to axe a third of its offices and about 600 jobs in the UK is the clearest sign yet of the pain in the house building sector. It may not be the first cut so far announced, but it is the deepest. And it follows weeks of discussion over how big the job losses might be among the 300,000 people the Home Builders Federation estimate are directly employed by house builders. Guestimates circulating among those in the…
George Soros, the man who made a $1 billion profit in 1992 from anticipating Black Wednesday, says that the US recession is likely to be longer and more serious than currently expected and economic prospects are “in some ways” worse for the UK. Speaking to BBC’s Robert Peston he said that the UK economy was in a more fragile state than the US economy because the housing boom in the UK was twice the size of that in the US…
When accountants start to get twitchy it is worth sitting up and taking notice. So, the latest business confidence survey by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) showing the impact of the credit crunch is spreading is worth taking seriously. Figures of note are that property has overtaken banking and finance as the focus of most concern. The confidence index for property dropped to -47.0 against the whole economy average of -19.7. Meanwhile confidence in the…
Transactions are to plunge by 40% this year and prices will fall about 5%, says the latest Housing Market Forecast from the surveyors body RICS. The latest forecast shifts RICS from it position of last September when it was predicting house prices would remain flat. But for the industry at large the drop in transactions is likely to present the most worrrying threat.
The rise in Rightmove’s asking price index to a new record high is the result of out-of-touch discretionary sellers testing the spring market with unrealistic prices, according to the property website’s commercial director Miles Shipside. Despite the almost overwhelming gloom in the market, Rightmove posted a rise of 1.2% in asking prices in May, making for a 2.2% rise over the past year. Such paradoxes are commonplace when markets move from rising to falling. And for those puzzled by the…
The latest inflation report from the Bank of England and the comments from the Governor Mervyn King have effectively put paid to hopes that interest rates are on the way down. Consumer Price Inflation leapt back to 3% in April and the Governor has prepared himself to write a series of letters to the Chancellor over coming months in expectation that CPI will rise above 3% and stay there for some months. This general inflation will impact on construction and…
Have you noticed that there is a new measure in town – the Gherkin. Here are two recent examples. In the story about CEBR’s estimate of 6,200 job losses in the City one gherkin equates to just over 3,000 City jobs. In the story about the estimate by Drivers Jonas that there will be a tidal wave of excess office space in City one Gherkin equates to just shy of 1% of the total available office space in the City….
The latest Government house building figures appear to add weight to growing fears that unless there is a dramatic turnaround in fortunes the number of private homes built this year could fall by a quarter or more. A fall of this scale would beat the 1974 drop of 24% in homes built for sale – the biggest post-War collapse in house building.
Reading the news in the FT that Merrill Lynch’s Mark Hake, the longstanding construction industry analyst, has downgraded house builders was not good to hear. But more worrying to the industry as a whole is that he seems to be suggesting industry volumes will drop by a quarter this year. That is huge. It is as large as the peak-to-trough fall in the housing recession of the early 1990s. I haven’t seen the detail of the note yet and imagine…